Divvying out Measure A funds to S. County

An effort to provide uninsured lower-income Morgan Hill children with healthcare services has helped a Santa Clara County nonprofit gain public funds to expand its reach to other communities.
The Healthier Kids Foundation will is slated to receive about $1.1 million in county Measure A sales tax revenues—divvied up over the next two years—after the Board of Supervisors voted to distribute the surplus funds to local nonprofits at an April 15 meeting.
At the April 15 meeting, the board of supervisors voted to grant a total of 17 organizations about $9.6 million in leftover Measure A funds. Measure A is a one-eight-cent sales tax approved by the voters in 2012. The county has raised about $45 million from the sales tax—with about $20 million spent on maintaining the current level of county services and about $15.3 million spent on improving services.
The remaining $9.6 million was set aside in a reserve fund to be bid on by outside community organizations. County staff received bids from nearly 100 different organizations, 17 of which made the list after the April 15 board vote.
Among other efforts, the foundation plans to use the funds to identify up to 2,360 uninsured children throughout the county and enroll at least 1,900 of them in health coverage programs, according to a proposal submitted by Healthier Kids Foundation.
About $100,000 of the grant of voter-approved sales tax revenues will be spent on the Healthier Kids Foundation’s Community Outreach, Prevention and Education (COPE) program, according to the proposal. COPE uses dedicated staff and resources, as well as relationships with other agencies such cities and school districts to identify “hard-to-reach uninsured children” who qualify for existing healthcare services but for a number of reasons are not currently enrolled.
The overall budget for the COPE program, which funds about two full-time foundation staff, is about $230,000 per year, and they hope to expand that with the approval of county funds and other anticipated funding, according to Healthier Kids Foundation Vice President of Finance and Program Emily Hennessy.
One-on-one partnership
Last year the Morgan Hill City Council agreed to establish a one-on-one partnership with Healthier Kids Foundation and the COPE program to ensure local children receive routine healthcare such as dental care and vision screenings. The city agreed to fund the effort to the tune of $20,000 from the general fund.
The goal in Morgan Hill is to enroll at least 170 children in health insurance programs by June, Hennessy said.
As of last year, about 500 children in Morgan Hill were uninsured, according to city staff. The council last year identified youth healthcare as one of its top priorities, as Morgan Hill has the highest percentage of uninsured children of any other city in the county.
“The thing that has been so successful in Morgan Hill was the mayor and council getting us to the Morgan Hill Unified School District, which (usually) takes a lot of time to get in,” Hennessy said. “We’ve used Morgan Hill as a model for other school districts. That’s a key to inundate the community from different ways. If we touch parents in particular, it reinforces our message and builds a stronger bond between us, and parents, and the community in general.”
Healthier Kids Foundation reaches out to a variety of existing programs in Morgan Hill that provide youth services which are typically not healthcare related, according to Morgan Hill Community Services Director Chris Ghione. These programs include the El Toro Youth Center, YMCA, Youth Alliance and the Morgan Hill Library.
Ghione added that shortly after the council directed city staff to seek the best way to spend $20,000 on insuring uninsured children, they found that Healthier Kids Foundation is uniquely focused on that task.
“There’s other ways to get insurance, but Healthier Kids Foundation doesn’t provide (insurance)—it helps people navigate the system,” Ghione said. “Every single youth in Santa Clara County is eligible to get health insurance, but they don’t because of different things preventing them—not having the knowledge, not knowing where to go, or they need someone to help them get through the system.”